Reading Music/Transcript
Transcript Moby sits on the ground and plays "Moonlight Sonata" by Ludwig Beethowen on a small piano while Tim leans on the back of the piano. Musical notes in a staff appear overhead as Moby plays them. Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. TIM: Wow, that's pretty good! When did you learn to play the piano? MOBY: Beep. Moby ejects a CD from his mouth and hands it to Tim. TIM: (reading the disc) "Fauntleroy R. Cranstonian plays Beethoven". You don't know how to play the piano at all, do you? MOBY: Beep. TIM: What do you mean, "sometimes"? Tim holds up a letter and reads from it. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby: I want to start a band, but I don't know how to read music. Can you guys teach me? From Courtney. Well, I—I don't think we have time to teach you everything...but we can definitely go over the basics. Musical notation is kind of like a language or a code. It might be hard to grasp at first, but once you know the rules, it can become second nature. The camera pans along two musical staffs, which are made up of five horizontal lines each and are full of musical notes and rests. TIM: Pretty much all music is written on a set of five lines called a staff. That weird-looking symbol over there is called a treble clef, or a g clef. A set of five horizontal lines is shown. On the left, a stylized G fills the staff vertically, and next to it are two 4s, one on top of the other. TIM: A clef tells you what pitch your notes will be based on. A treble clef means that the music on this staff will have a fairly high pitch. High-pitched notes are played and appear above and in the staff as the camera pans to the right. TIM: Sometimes, instead of a treble clef, you'll see a bass clef. The music on this staff will have a fairly low pitch. Another five-line staff is shown with a stylized F instead of the G and the same 4 over 4. Low-pitched notes are played and appear below and in the staff as the camera pans to the right. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yup, those doodads you see on the staff are the almighty notes. Many different types of notes appear all over and around the staff. TIM: Most western music is made out of seven different whole tones, or notes. They're often referred to as do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti. In musical notation, the notes are named after the first seven letters of the alphabet. Every note has its own unique position on the staff, and its own separate key on the piano. A staff appears with written notes in it in ascending order. The notes are placed either on a line or between two lines. This placement alternates. Each note is highlighted as Tim names it, and its name appears underneath it. The notes are then played again, and this time their letter names appear: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. A set of piano keys appears under the scale. TIM: This is a C. This is a D. This is an E. A finger presses the first three white keys individually. TIM: As you can hear, the notes get higher and higher-pitched as they move upward on the staff. If you want to read music, you have to remember exactly which tone corresponds to each written note. The finger plays the rest of the scale up to B. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yeah, it is like a whole other language. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Oh, those numbers? That's called the time signature. It tells you the rhythm of a piece of music. Written music is divided into rhythmic units called measures. The top number in a time signature tells you how many beats or counts there are in each measure. And the bottom half tells you what kind of note gets one beat. An arrow points to the 4 over 4 in the staff. Next, a silhouette of a person is shown dancing to four beats. A staff is then shown with vertical lines dividing it into smaller subsections. These are individually highlighted in a sequence progressing from left to right. Above each measure, the silhouette is shown dancing to four beats before moving to the next. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Oh, yeah, there several different kinds of notes, named for how long they last. The camera pans over many different kinds of notes. TIM: This is a whole note. An elliptical note with a hollowed-out center is shown. A metronome beats time as the note is played over four beats. TIM: And these are half notes. Each one is played half as long as a whole note. Two notes with upward-pointing stems and hollowed-out centers are shown. They are played for two beats each. TIM: And then these are quarter notes. They're a quarter as long as the whole note. Four solid notes with upward-pointing stems are played for one beat each. TIM: These are eighth notes, which are played one eighth as long as a whole note. Four solid notes with upward-pointing tails that fall from the top of the stems to the right of the stems are shown. An alternative notation system is shown in which all four notes are connected by a thick black horizontal bar at the top of their stems. Their tails are missing in this style. Two of them are played for each beat. TIM: And so on. Sixteenth notes are shown. They look like eighth notes, but when written singly have double tails and when written connected have double bars. Four of them are played per beat. Thirty-second notes have three tails and triple bars. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, a lot of music is written in four/four time. Since the top number for that time signature is four, that means there are four beats in each measure. And the bottom four means a quarter, so a quarter note gets one beat. Music in, say, six/eight time, would have six beats in a measure and an eighth note getting one beat. Or, for two/two time, there are two beats in a measure, with a half note getting one beat. Two measures are shown. The silhouette of a dancing person appears over the staff for each beat—four per measure. Notes are played, and a quarter note appears for each one: four in the treble clef of the first measure and four in the bass clef of the second measure. Next, a treble and bass clef are shown with a six over an eight instead of the 4 over 4. Six dancing silhouettes appear over the first measure, and then six quarter notes appear as they are played. Next, a pair of 2 over 2 measures are shown. Two dancing silhouettes appear over each measure. Then two half notes appear in each measure as they are played. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, no. You don't always play sounds continuously, these symbols are called rests. They tell you when to, uh, rest—or not play. Several rest symbols are shown above a staff in a line. The first two look like an upside-down top hat and a right-side-up top hat. The next looks like a lightning bolt, and the next four look like twigs with one, two, three, or four leaves on their left sides. Rests are also shown in the staff. TIM: Last but not least, we've got sharps and flats. When you see a sharp symbol, it means you have to play a half-step higher, or sharper, than the whole note it's next to. If a flat symbol comes along, it means you have to play the note a half-step lower, or flatter, than the whole-letter note. The sharp symbol, which looks like a number sign, and the flat symbol, which looks like a lowercase b, are shown. Then, a keyboard is shown under a staff with two whole notes in it. One note is an F; the other is an F sharp. A finger plays an F on the keyboard and then moves to the adjacent key to the right to play the F sharp. Next, a B and a B flat are shown. The finger plays a B and then moves to the adjacent key to the left to play the B flat. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, those are the basics. It takes a lot of practice to become proficient in the language of music. Moby reinserts the CD into his mouth and resumes playing the piano. Musical notes in a staff appear overhead as he plays them. TIM: I mean, you know...that is, unless you have a CD player built into your head. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Arts & Music Transcripts